


Thus Always To Tyrants

by MonsterParade



Category: Digimon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, I'm gonna give myself everything I want, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Polyamory, Trans Male Character, set in a Cyber Sleuth adjacent world, some action but mostly team bonding and building romance, very similar setup to Cyber Sleuth but then it goes off the rails
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27396679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonsterParade/pseuds/MonsterParade
Summary: Another iteration of a well-worn story; multiple roads diverged in a Digital World.
Relationships: Craniummon | Craniamon/Original Digimon Character(s), Omegamon | Omnimon/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	Thus Always To Tyrants

"Digimon Capture...what is Digimon Capture? What's Digimon?"  
  
All things considered, getting hacked hadn't been as bad as Mamoru had expected it to be. You heard all these stories on the news, on the street; people got their accounts hacked and their lives were ruined. Identities stolen, bank accounts drained, account fraud, or even worse. Your EDEN account was linked to pretty much everything, from the moment you got your very first Digivice and took your first step into cyberspace.  
  
Mamoru had been expecting the worst, when he'd been suddenly faced with a threat from a faceless hacker hidden behind a friendly mascot avatar. They could have destroyed him, and his entire modest livelihood...  
  
...But they didn't. And that was what made him the most uneasy.  
  
Whatever this 'Digimon Capture' was, it sat innocuously at the center of his Digivice screen, doing nothing obvious to his account or his avatar but just blinking slowly, innocently; like a ticking time bomb hidden inside the guts of a machine, harmless right up until it wasn't. He wanted it _off_ of his Digivice, the whole thing scrubbed clean and factory-reset, to prevent the nameless hacker from siphoning off his account information or whatever other unscrupulous things they must have been trying to do, but he was no tech-head, and it took a real professional to be able to do that sort of thing. It was a very delicate piece of technology, and Mamoru still fixed his video games by taking out the cartridge and blowing on it.  
  
So. That left him where he was now.  
  
He'd never been this deep into EDEN before-- had never taken so much as a step into the cyberspace's dark underbelly, at least before now. It wasn't quite that he was _scared,_ per se, but Kowloon was the realm of hackers and black-market cyber dealers, and Mamoru had a healthy fear of going wandering in places where his account could be at risk simply for being nearby. It was the same logic as not wandering around in back alleyways in the real world, or hanging out in dark parking garages by yourself.  
  
But desperate times called for desperate measures. If he had to keep looking at this Capture program, without knowing what it could do, he was going to crawl out of his skin. And if a hacker had broken it, then a hacker could fix it.  
  
Walking slowly, keeping to the edges of the walkway, Mamoru glanced down at the map displayed on his Digivice and tried not to let himself get intimidated. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't this-- a small, circular area labeled 'Junk Plaza', apparently the informal entryway to Kowloon's Level 1. There didn't appear to be anyone else around, which wasn't surprising, given the plaza's appearance; mountains of strange detritus and half-built playground equipment wrapped around the edges of it; stuffed animals, a bicycle, a tower of blocks each as big around as Mamoru's torso. Loads of junk data, too, glittering on the floors...it was an aptly-named location.  
  
He stopped underneath the lone streetlamp illuminating the strange place and allowed himself a minute to steel his nerves.  
  
He felt like a lost sheep. He'd never handled unfamiliar places well, not on his own, and although his physical body would be safe at home no matter the turnout, he could still be (in a certain sense of the word) in very _real_ danger if things went sideways. He stuck out like a sore thumb down here and he knew it.  
  
"Fuck," he muttered, grinding the heel of his palm against his forehead.  
  
Why did that hacker have to target him in the first place? He'd never done anything to anyone, _especially_ not anything that would warrant such drastic measures of revenge-- he was quiet and polite, always preferring to keep to himself around strangers, and he prided himself on his ability to diffuse tense situations.  
  
It was just a random act of cruelty, with no rhyme or reason, and somehow that was what made his blood boil the most.  
  
If he ever ran into that hacker in the real world, he was going to knock his teeth out. But for the time being, his revenge would have to be shelved.  
  
Mamoru's heart was starting to thump, so he began to pace, working himself up as he gradually approached the entrance to Kowloon in widening circles around the plaza. He passed by a row of colorful tires, repurposed as playground equipment, and gently kicked the soccer ball that rested just beside them, rolling it along with him as he rounded the curve of a large pipe. Then he gave it a harder kick, letting out a little of his frustration, and watched the ball ping off of the pole of an old basketball hoop and bounce away into the darkness behind a stack of old TVs.  
  
He expected some sort of clattering, but it never came. Instead, there was a dull piercing sound, like someone sticking a pencil through a thick stack of paper, and a quiet whoosh of air. Mamoru paused to tilt his head.  
  
The soccer ball came flying back out like a frisbee, torn open and deflated where it flopped sadly back to the ground. And behind the mountain of old televisions, something heavy moved.  
  
Mamoru's Digivice _ping_ ed.  
  
He wanted to glance down at it, but he couldn't-- not when he could hear footsteps, shuffling ones, and see the shadow of something huge rising up across the floor from the place where he had previously been sure there was no one.  
  
_Ping_  
  
The strange clank of metal.  
  
_Ping_  
  
A figure he couldn't identify, something tall held in its hand.  
  
_Ping-- ping-- ping--_  
  
Mamoru shoved his Digivice into his pocket and clenched it in his fist, trying to muffle it, a sudden cold sweat beading on the back of his neck, and commendably did not scream when the _thing_ finally stepped into view.  
  
It was big, huge-- _really_ huge, twice Mamoru's entire height at _least_ \-- and for a minute he thought he was hallucinating things, because it really did look an awful lot like a suit of armor. An _enormous_ suit of armor, the whole thing a glossy and royal purple save the feathery plumes atop the helm. It had dark eyeholes, and a wide mouth set in a toothy grimace, and as he watched with frozen legs, those eyeholes lit up with little points of red.  
  
Eyes. _Real_ eyes. There was somebody _in_ there.  
  
Whoever they were, they looked around for a few moments before they even noticed him, standing so far below their eye-level, and Mamoru couldn't even meet their gaze when they did because he was too busy looking at the double-ended spear in their hand that was big enough to cut him in two. That weapon alone could have crushed him with its weight.  
  
"State your name and the meaning of this or face my blade," the armored individual demanded, their voice ringing inside their helm.  
  
"Uh-- uhh--" Mamoru stammered in reply, too bewildered by this abrupt change of events to get his head on straight. He held up his hands instead, palms forward in a gesture of supplication, and motioned gently, hurriedly stepping backwards as the armored creature leveled their spearhead at his face. "Whoa! What, what did I do?"  
  
As a reply, the creature kicked the deflated soccer ball back at Mamoru, and it flopped over one of his shoes accusingly. Ah.  
  
"I'm so sorry, that was just an accident," he told them, backing away some more and angling for the exit. He didn't know _what_ the fuck was going on now, but whether this was a person or a monster, he wasn't willing to let them turn him into a kebab even if they were in cyberspace. Even EDEN's simulated pain response still hurt.  
  
He needed to run. He _wanted_ to run, but something just stopped him. Even as the creature approached, it stopped him.  
  
"Do I... _know_ you?" Mamoru finally asked, the question slipping past his lips despite his surety that it was insane. If he'd ever met someone in a suit of armor before-- especially someone taller than the tallest basketball player in the world-- there was no way he could have forgotten it. But something about this creature just seemed so bizarrely _familiar_.  
  
And his question was enough to give the creature pause, at least.  
  
"No," they said, even as they looked him over, "I have never seen a creature like you."  
  
Mamoru was about to reply that he was in very much the same boat, and couldn't they all just please get along, when a _second_ voice rang out from that hollow behind the old televisions,  
  
"Are you certain?"  
  
Both he and the armored creature simultaneously turned their heads.  
  
This time, when the very not-human thing stepped out from their hiding place, Mamoru was less scared than before and more bemused. If the purple creature looked like a suit of heavy armor, then this one looked to him very much like a Gundam. If he hadn't been scared, it might have been funny.  
  
"How can you know?" the second creature asked, directing their question at the first one. They were different, less intimidating and more elegant-- all white and red and gold, slender horns on their metal helm and a long cape at their back. They wore heavy gauntlets in the shape of strange animal heads, whatever hands they might have had obscured, and their eyes were a clear and piercing blue, like still water. They looked between Mamoru and their companion, expression unreadable, and slowly moved to join them.  
  
Mamoru watched, fixated.  
  
It was now, for the first time, that he noticed the smell of burning metal-- and became aware of the singed edges on the horned creature's cape, the unsteady way they moved, and the ash that filled the scrapes and dents in the purple creature's armor. The first raised his hand to steady his compatriot, saying nothing in response to their question, and gave Mamoru another look.  
  
The horned creature knelt down in front of him, and Mamoru was too enchanted to flinch back.  
  
"Who are you?" they asked, not unkindly. _"What_ are you?"  
  
With his companion here, the heavier armored creature suddenly seemed calmer, and Mamoru strangely felt safe enough to answer. There was something about those clear eyes...  
  
"I'm...Mamoru. And I'm, uh, I'm just, a human."  
  
"Mamoru?" they repeated slowly, glancing up at their friend, who hesitated a moment before shaking his head. Mamoru tilted his.  
  
"The name stirs nothing." the armored one said, his tone almost resigned. The horned one only sighed, giving him a wave, before returning their gaze to Mamoru.  
  
"I am Omnimon. This is my compatriot, Craniamon." they said, gesturing with their left gauntlet. Craniamon-- apparently-- gave a stiff nod. "Can you tell us where we are?"  
  
Mamoru swallowed, his mouth strangely dry.  
  
"Um...we're in the Junk Plaza, just above Kowloon 1."  
  
"Junk Plaza?" Omnimon repeated.  
  
"Kowloon?" Craniamon asked, his brow furrowing. And that was distracting, the way he did that-- how could armor, metal, bend or move like someone's face? _Was_ that his face? Was he even wearing armor, or was the armor him after all? Mamoru blinked, a few times, before his brain caught back up with him.  
  
"...Oh! Yeah, it's-- Kowloon is like the underside of EDEN, I guess. Kind of like the basement," he explained, pointing past them to the door that led to it. "Are you guys lost?"  
  
Kind of distantly, he noticed that his heart had stopped hammering. Leave it to him to end up dealing with his kryptonite; people in need of help. He'd always been too much of a goody-goody for his own good, but he couldn't help the tender feeling that took root in his chest every time someone needed him. It was nice to feel wanted.  
  
Omnimon and Craniamon glanced at each other.  
  
"That seems likely," Omnimon admitted, slowly straightening back up to their full height. Once again, Craniamon braced a hand on their chest to steady them. "The truth is...we seem to have lost our memories. We cannot remember where we are, how we got here...or even what our purpose here was."  
  
"Oh, _shit,"_ Mamoru said, astutely.  
  
"Indeed," Craniamon agreed. "We can recall only our names."  
  
"Do you...know what you are?" Mamoru asked, automatically extending his hands as if to catch Omnimon when they wobbled, a pointless reflex for someone of their size difference. Now that he was pretty certain they didn't want to hurt him, despite first impressions-- Craniamon must have been protecting his injured friend-- he was starting to get excited, charmed by his new acquaintances, his own problems far from his mind and his hacked Digivice forgotten.  
  
"We are Digimon. Digital Monsters."


End file.
